$290 of malware damage per Windows PC worldwide in
2004;
XP Service Pack 2 creates "Haves and Have Nots" as road forks

news alert

London, UK - 24 August 2004, 17:45 GMT - There are an estimated 600
million Windows based Personal Computers (PCs) across the world of which over
200 million run Windows XP, according to the latest estimates from Microsoft.
Therefore, the release of the new Service Pack Two (SP2) - designed to patch
many critical security vulnerabilities in Windows XP - is a subject of direct
relevance to geographic populations and corporations greater than most countries
on earth and yet there is no consensus on the optimum methodology for dealing
with this necessary installation. According to the latest available research
from mi2g's SIPS database, the economic damage from malware proliferation
in 2004 including MyDoom, NetSky and SoBig is estimated to lie between $157
billion and $192 billion worldwide or expressed another way, it works out
to between $261 and $320 - average $290 - of productivity losses worldwide
per Windows PC. This latest estimate of losses per PC attributable to malware
proliferation demonstrates the validity of the algorithm 'Economic Valuation
Engine for Damage Analysis' (EVEDA), which forms the basis for the digital
risk assessment research carried out by the mi2g Intelligence Unit.